


true north (is wherever you are)

by demonglass



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near Death Experiences, POV Alternating, Spiderman AU, all the cop stuff is based on b99 sue me, between felix and seungmin, blink n you'll miss it minsung, felix and seungmin are soft as fuck, inaccurate hospital stuff sue me again, spiderman saves the day, various 00line idol cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 17:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21461818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonglass/pseuds/demonglass
Summary: Spiderman screams his name. The stars rush away from Felix and cool air whips and curls around his body as he plummets, and Spiderman screamshis name.
Relationships: Kim Seungmin/Lee Felix
Comments: 52
Kudos: 348





	true north (is wherever you are)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [true north (is wherever you are)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27385348) by [semya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semya/pseuds/semya)

FELIX

Sometimes, when Seungmin is speaking, Felix forgets to breathe. 

There’s something about the atmosphere of debates - the charged air, the electric silence that falls in between notes of speech - that leaves him feeling like he’s teetering at the edge of a precipice. It’s something in how Felix’s veins are already coursing with adrenaline, how he feels so conscious of the space he occupies that he swears he can feel every atom in him buzzing with anticipation. It’s a dozen little things combined that hit Felix like a lethal concoction and leave him spinning and dizzy when Seungmin stands to fill his role as their third speaker, to drive home their closing argument and cinch their victory. 

( It’s a dozen little things, but mostly, it’s Seungmin. )

Tonight, at the end of a day-long tournament, their last debate of the season, time seems to stop altogether as Seungmin clears his throat and begins to speak. Felix hears the opening words and then his brain turns to static. All he can do is stare across the table with starry eyes as Seungmin’s calm, confident voice washes over him. The sound smooths all his nervous edges like waves lapping at stones on the shore. 

Felix knows he should be focusing, should be listening, but even when he tries, he only hears bits and pieces of Seungmin’s speech. Nevertheless, he feels the impact of each argument, feels the unwavering belief Seungmin has in his own words as he lives up to the pressure with enrapturing poise. It’s the most incredible thing Felix has ever seen. 

( Of course it is. It’s Seungmin. )

The room seems to be holding its breath along with Felix; absolute silence fills the air as Seungmin pauses, dropping a beat to build the tension before delivering a final blow. There’s a bright, shining light in his eyes as he relishes in the moment, one that Felix refuses to believe is a trick of the overhead fixtures. This is Seungmin in his element, and Felix absolutely captivated. He could sit here and take it in for hours, admire Seungmin bit by bit until he’s fallen all over again, but their allotted time runs down by the second. Soon enough, Seungmin is nodding to punctuate his last word, and sinking back to his seat like the sun dipping below the horizon. 

As all eyes leave him to turn to the front again, Felix’s linger - long enough to catch a small, satisfied smile grace Seungmin’s lips.

Time doesn’t exist between that small smile and the moment when the moderators announce that Felix’s team has won. In the moment of victory, time turns to summer-melted caramel: thick and slow and so sweet it sends tingles racing across Felix’s skin. 

Chaos erupts in slow motion on the winning side. 

Felix springs up from his seat and his feet carry him forward before he can even process where he’s going. Like he’s drawn in by some magnetic force, Felix finds himself heading straight for Seungmin. He almost feels guilty for walking past Jisung until Seungmin turns right to him, bright eyes meeting his, and all the air is knocked from his lungs. 

Seungmin is _ beaming _. There’s so much joy on his face it seems as though he might burst at the seams, unable to contain it all. Felix knows he must look the same as he launches himself into Seungmin’s opening arms with an exuberant cry. Seungmin catches him, wrapping his arms tight around Felix’s waist and easily bearing the impact as Felix’s secures arms around his neck. 

“You did so well!” Felix says into Seungmin’s collar, so loud with excitement that it’s barely muffled by the obstruction. 

Seungmin’s grip on Felix tightens as he gives him a happy squeeze. “So did you,” he breathes. It tickles against Felix’s neck and sends a shiver down his spine. “Your delivery was so clean!”

Felix nuzzles his head against Seungmin’s at the praise and returns the squeeze, holding on a moment or two too long before loosening his grip and dropping back down to his heels. Seungmin releases his hold around Felix’s middle only to catch his hands before they can fall away. He swings their joined hands back and forth between them like an excited child, so much warmth spilling over his face Felix feels like his heart might beat right out of his chest. He can’t remember the last time he was this happy, the last time his whole body buzzed like a livewire and every touch felt like an electric shock. 

_ I love you _, he thinks as Seungmin’s sparkling eyes hold his for what feels like a lifetime captured in a single moment. His cheeks hurt from smiling so wide, but he can’t figure out how to stop. He hears the cheers of his teammates and feels Seungmin’s hands twitch around his own, and his chest feels full to bursting. 

The dam breaks when Jisung bursts into the bubble around Felix and Seungmin, and Felix lets himself be swept away by the wave as it crashes. More excited arms surround him and suddenly the bodies crowd in so they’re all cheering and jumping up and down together, and Felix can hardly tell anymore if it’s Jisung or his sister Eunji or if it’s their junior advisor Chan at his side. He bounces along with them nonetheless, letting all the exuberance bubble up and rush out of him in hoots and hollers that mix in with Jisung and Seojeong’s to the point where the three voices are indistinguishable. He relishes in the sweet, happy chaos. _ I love this _.

It’s only when the celebrations settle down and the glee surging through Felix calms enough to be contained safely within him that he notices a member of their party is missing. Somehow Jisung has ended up sprawled on the floor, Eunji lifting and dropping his limbs like he's a marionette she wants to make dance. Seojeong is talking animatedly with Chan about the chocolates he’d seemingly conjured out of thin air and stuffed everyone’s pockets with, and Felix catches them right as she accidentally whacks Chan’s cheek with the back of her hand.

“Have you seen Seungmin?” He asks, stifling a snort at the baffled look on Chan’s (thankfully, unhurt) face. 

Seojeong has no such tact, and her surprised giggles quickly fall into full bodied laughter as she waves a careless hand out in the direction of the door. “Bathroom or something,” she wheezes.

Felix hears even Chan break into chuckles as he offers a quick thanks and skips towards the exit in search of Seungmin. Knowing him, he’s probably already gotten lost or distracted by something on display in the halls. Felix would be a poor friend if he didn’t head out to help him. 

He wanders down four different hallways before finding the bathrooms, and after peeking his head in to see if Seungmin has managed to find them yet and finding nothing, he turns around and heads back the way he came. He trots down a hallway he recognizes as being near the front of the building, still smiling to himself. The overhead lights turn a garish shade of yellow that stains the floor the same color as spilled egg yolk, but Felix’s vision is rosy and so blurred by joy that he doesn’t notice.

One last turn and he finally catches sight of a familiar mop of wavy brown hair. The rosy tint over his eyes deepens. “Seungmin!” Felix calls, still too giddy to register what his retreating figure in this particular part of the building means. “Where’re you going? The bathroom’s the other way.”

Seungmin freezes, going stiff under ugly streaks of the artificial light. He spins slowly to face Felix, guilt painting his skin pink. “I wasn’t, uh…” he trails off.

“What?” Felix is still high enough on victory to ignore the signs. “Come on! Everyone’s still back in the hall and in theory we gotta get our stuff together at some point. But hey, Chan broke out chocolate and everything!” He waves a dark purple bar in his hand once and then lobs it to Seungmin.

“Oh, thanks.” Seungmin catches the chocolate with ease. “But… I already packed up my stuff.”

The words pierce through the happy haze in Felix’s head and his eyes find the bag slung over Seungmin’s shoulder. He is indeed all ready to go. _To go… _The rosy hue shrouding Felix’s vision dissipates like morning fog. Suddenly the hall appears just as harsh and blemished as it is. “You’re leaving?” He can’t keep the shock of disappointment out of his voice.

Seungmin cringes in lieu of an answer.

“But we _ won _ !” Felix doesn’t understand. Doesn’t want to accept it. “This was our last tourney… last debate of the season; we’re supposed to celebrate. _ Together _.” 

Seungmin’s fingers tighten around the chocolate bar and there’s a low cracking sound as it breaks under the pressure of his grip. “I know, Felix. Parties just aren’t my thing.”

“But it’s not just a party, it’s us! _ We’re _your thing.” Felix hesitates, watching Seungmin carefully. “Aren’t we?” 

“Of course,” Seungmin says, taking a step closer as if to close the distance between them until he thinks better of it. He keeps Felix at arm’s length. It’s hard to believe he was just holding him so tight. “It’s just been a long day.”

“For all of us!” Felix pushes. He knows he shouldn’t, but dammit he _ misses _Seungmin and they’re supposed to be happy right now. They’re supposed to be together.

A line creases down the middle of Seungmin’s face, tearing it in two. He opens his mouth to say something, but his phone buzzes in his pocket and cuts him off. He looks away from Felix to check it and his face shifts. His eyes are far away when he looks at Felix again. “I’m sorry. It’s family stuff.” He takes a step backwards; the gap between them widens. “We can hang out tomorrow, maybe?”

Felix deflates. Seungmin steps further away. His eyes are on Felix, but he can see them slipping, losing focus. “Yeah,” he sighs. There’s no point trying to stop Seungmin now. He can’t make him stay any longer. “I’ll text you. Tell Wonpil I say hi.”

“‘Kay.” Seungmin is already mere feet from the door, just across the lobby from Felix, but there may as well be miles between them. A _ ‘see you!’ _flung over Seungmin’s shoulder is the last Felix gets of him before he pushes through the doors and vanishes into shades of spilled wine and inky blue. 

A gust of chilly air sweeps in through the door as it swings shut again and closes with a loud click. Felix stares at the spot where Seungmin had just been standing, stares at where he’d been swallowed by the coming night. There’s barely the faintest buzz of victory left coursing through him, barely any of the high, floaty feeling he’d had just minutes ago when he’d gone off in search of Seungmin. 

Two weeks ago he would’ve been upset. Two weeks ago he _ was _ upset.

_ ( “Sorry, Lix. Something came up. I can’t make it tonight. Maybe we should just work separately on the project out of school and catch up during the day. I don’t think I have time.” _

_ For a moment, Felix doesn’t respond, and the only sound on the call is Seungmin’s breathing. It’s labored, like he’s running, but Felix doesn’t notice over the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. This was the _ one _ thing he thought for sure would pin Seungmin down. He was counting on it, looking forward to it even though it’s a lot of work and an important grade this far into the semester. Thought that, hey, maybe Seungmin suddenly couldn’t make much time for him anymore, but he always made time for school, right? _

_ He stares forlornly at the takeout bag in his hand. There’s servings for two inside. Clearly he was wrong about Seungmin. Guesses he doesn’t know him as well as the past three-odd years would have him think. _

_ “Felix?” Seungmin’s voice breaks the silence. _

_ Right. “That’s fine,” Felix says, a bit snappier than he intends. He flinches at the sound of his own voice. This isn’t how he talks to Seungmin. Gentler, “I’ll see you Monday, Min.” _

_ “Thanks! See you-” _

_ The call cuts off before Seungmin finishes, and Felix lets the phone fall from his ear, a sharp spike of disappointment stabbing through him. He reroutes away from Seungmin’s neighborhood and tries not to think about the hollow feeling in his chest. ) _

Two weeks ago he was upset. But now-

_ ( He drops the file like it’s burned his skin. Papers and shiny pictures slip and slide across the desk and he races to stuff them all in the tan manilla folder again before anyone notices what he’s seen. ) _

\- Now he’s just tired. A little bit empty. He doesn’t know what to do, so he stands still where he is until hollering echoes down the hall behind him. 

“Oi! Felix!” 

Felix braces for impact not a moment too soon as a body barrels into him and tackles him from behind. Jisung throws himself onto Felix’s back, arms looping loosely down his neck, and wraps his legs tight around Felix’s hips to secure his hold. Felix lets out a loud grunt at the impact, but manages not to topple under the weight of the Jisung koala-clinging to him. 

“I can’t believe we won!” Jisung yells, and the timing turns comically terrible. The other finalists - the opposing debate team they’d just beaten - round the corner the very moment the words leave Jisung’s lips. More than one dirty look is sent Jisung’s way, and Felix can’t help the embarrassed snicker that slips out of him despite everything. 

Though Jisung appears unaffected as the competition files sourly through the lobby and out the front door, it proves to be the calm before the storm. A dull smack rings through the lobby just before the last of their competitors makes it through the door, followed by a loud yelp from Jisung. “You shouldn’t be surprised, dumbass,” comes Eunji’s voice from just behind Felix. He jumps, startled by the silent approach, and Jisung makes an extremely undignified noise as he falls from Felix’s back. 

Catching himself just before crashing to the ground, Jisung turns on his sister. “Are you kidding me? They had Huang fuckin Renjun on their team! Not to mention that Donghyuck kid! I swear I looked into his eyes after he delivered their opening and saw a different dimension in there. That’s a guy who doesn’t fear God, I’d put money on it.”

“Oh shut up. It was just the lights,” she bites back.

“The lights my ass! Just because _ you _were too busy heart-eyeing over their second what’s-her-name-”

“Serim-”

“That’s my point!” Jisung throws his hands up in the air in exasperation and Eunji wrinkles her nose and sticks her tongue out at him. Just when it appears that the two will continue the argument and fight for real, all the tension dissipates at once - air rushing out of a popped balloon. “Anyway,” Jisung turns to Felix like the last minute never happened, and it’d give him whiplash if he hadn’t spent all of middle and high school watching them bicker like this every day. As is, he barely flinches. Jisung’s brows knit together. “I forget why we came out here.”

“To find Felix.” Eunji reminds him.

“Right. And why did _ you _come out here?” He pokes Felix’s chest.

“To find Seungmin.”

“And where is _ he _?” Jisung and Eunji ask at the same time, just like twins in the movies do.

Felix sighs, “I caught him as he was leaving. Guess it’s just us and Seojeong.”

Jisung’s face falls. “What was it this time?”

“Family stuff,” Felix echoes Seungmin’s answer, “I think Wonpil texted him about something.”

“Even tonight?” Shock colors Eunji’s voice. Felix can only shrug in response.

“Damn him.” Jisung shakes a half-joking fist at the ceiling. “Hogging all our Minnie time now that he’s back home. I swear at this point I’d believe it if someone told me they were in a fucking fight club or something! I could _ totally _ see Wonpil doing that. He has scrappy underdog energy. Plus I bet he'd look good in a ring.” 

Jisung’s eyes go slightly hazy and Eunji kicks his shin. Hard. “Easy there tiger, you’ve already got yourself an actual hot boyfriend.”

“Hey,” Jisung whinges, bending over to rub his shin and glaring at his sister the whole time, “I’m the only one who can call Minho that. It’s weird when you do it.”

“Sorry.” She shrugs in a way that suggests she is not sorry at all. “Anyway let’s head back now and get our shit together so we can get outta here. Chan said he’d order a pizza for us and I am _ not _missing out on that.” Eunji punctuates her point by spinning on her heel and practically skipping back down the hall. 

“I gotta say… she makes a good point about that pizza,” Jisung says, patting Felix’s shoulder before taking off after his sister.

Felix’s sigh is lost under the sound of Jisung’s shoes slapping against the linoleum floors, and when he turns a corner runs out of sight, Felix figures there’s nothing to do but follow. Pizza and chocolate _ does _sound good after all. 

It turns out that chocolate, pizza, and friends are more than just good. Felix finds laughter bubbling out of him as he and his teammates attempt to stuff themselves all into Chan’s car like circus clowns. All their bags are thrown in the trunk to make room, but it’s a tight squeeze with Felix, Jisung, and Eunji all in the back three seats. Jisung curses Seojeong repeatedly for winning rock paper scissors, to which she only laughs. 

“Maybe if you were a true lesbian ally and had thrown scissors you wouldn’t have lost so badly,” she teases from the passenger seat. 

Jisung’s mouth drops open and he fumbles to find an appropriate response for almost a full minute, sending Seojeong and Eunji into fits of giggles. “I’m literally gay,” Jisung whines when the minute is up. “Have I ever been unsupportive of you, Ji?”

Eunji pinches Jisung’s thigh and he yelps, affronted, leaning into Felix’s side in a feeble attempt to escape his sister’s wrath. “Literally ten minutes ago when you tried to clown me for liking a pretty girl, you twad.”

“She’s got you there,” Felix mutters, much to Jisung’s chagrin. Seojeong tosses him one of Chan’s chocolate bars as a reward, and they all laugh at Jisung’s ensuing whine - even Jisung. 

_ Yeah _ , Felix thinks as the rest of the ride to Chan’s place - with a pitstop at the local pizza place, of course - is filled with similar laughter and teasing, _ this is pretty great too _.

Once they arrive at Chan’s, they all unload and the party really starts. There’s the pizza, chocolates, some soda Chan digs out of his fridge, and the best part: even the water from the kitchen sink tastes like heaven after the water fountains in the tournament building. Felix drinks enough to get a camel through a desert because hell, pizza is greasy as _ fuck _. 

Jisung and Eunji fight over the bluetooth connection to Chan’s speakers until they realize they’re both trying to play the same song, and Eunji relents so Jisung can start his _ ‘party timez’ _playlist. ( The ‘z’ is ironic, he insists. Felix can’t help but think it isn’t. ) The playlist consists almost entirely of deep house and future bass songs, and Felix is sure Chan approves even before he pushes back the couch Seojeong is sprawled across to make room for dancing. 

Eunji joins him on the floor first, bopping her shoulders side to side in a much more dignified sort of dance than Chan has committed to. After finishing his third slice of pizza, Felix jumps into the fray, prompting Jisung to haul ass off the chair he’d been occupying since announcing with a slightly green face that he’d probably eaten too many chocolates. Apparently the brief rest had been good for his stomach, because he’s almost able to match Felix’s nodding and awkward shimmying for an entire song. As soon as the beat changes to something softer though, he sags against Felix, groaning. 

“How did you talk me into this,” he whines into Felix’s shoulder.

Felix laughs lightly, “I literally didn’t even say anything. This one’s on you.” Despite his answer, Felix pats Jisung’s back and leads him back to his chair so he can settle down again. 

Jisung groans a second time as he sinks into the cushions and Felix feels a tug of sympathy. Then he realizes it’s actually Jisung, hand on his arm, tugging him down onto the plush chair with him. Felix lets out a small squawk of protest, but quickly gives up and nestles in next to Jisung, back pressed against the arm of the chair. 

Jisung loops his arms around Felix, clinging to him like a small monkey to his mother, and Felix realizes he’s probably not moving again until Minho arrives in answer to Jisung’s numerous texts to bring him home for the night. Eunji casts a few worried glances their way until Jisung falls half asleep against Felix and he shoots her a thumbs up, and she returns to chatting with Chan and Seojeong.

Minho arrives around a half hour later and, after greeting everyone and congratulating them on their victory, tugs a droopy Jisung off of Felix and into his own arms with a fond smile. The group waves them off, and in the absence of Jisung and his music, Felix realizes the others are lost in their own world, discussing their topics from the tournament with the occasional comment on how one of the moderators looked like they could very well have been an alien trying to camouflage around humans. 

He pulls his phone from his pocket, half-hoping there will be a text from Seungmin, but all he sees is his lockscreen shot through with the current time. It’s not late, per se, but it’s not early anymore either, and Felix decides this is a good time to make his exit as well. “I think I’m gonna head out,” he says, standing and heading to collect his things. 

He expects only nods in return, but Seojeong jerks upright on the couch like she’s been shocked. “Oh! Sookyung wanted to meet up for a movie! I almost forgot!” She leaps off the couch and bounds towards Felix. “I’ll walk with you.”

“Sookyung, huh?” Eunji asks, a little too much innocence in her voice. “This another one of your _ not-dates _?”

“No!” Seojeong flushes, resolutely keeping her back to Eunji. “Well… maybe. I don’t know.”

“When are you two going to just admit you like each other? It’s literally so obvious it hurts to look at you when you’re together.” Eunji narrows her eyes even though Seojeong still refuses to look her way. “What is it, like, a gay requirement to pine after each other for months before you finally just suck it up and kiss?”

“Shut _ up _ ,” Seojeong whines, drawing out the _ up _as she slings her bag over her shoulder and finally turns to face Eunji. “We don’t all have your trademarked Han confidence and devastating looks.”

“Oh come on,” Felix can’t resist jumping in, “Eunji couldn’t even ask for that pretty second’s number today. She can’t be all that.”

Eunji cocks a neatly groomed eyebrow at Felix and he begins to feel like he’s made a terrible mistake. “I don’t think you’re in _ any _ position to be talking here, mister.” Her words are accompanied by a frightfully pointed look, and Felix becomes increasingly interested in the shoes he’s pulling on his feet. _ Girls _ , he thinks, _ are absolutely terrifying. _

When he looks back up though, Eunji looks calm and peaceful again as Chan asks if she’s going to abandon him as well. She punches his shoulder lightly and laughs, “I’m staying where the food is, don’t you worry. The real problem is gonna be getting rid of me.” Chan laughs at this too, part relieved, part nervous for a whole new reason, and waves Felix and Seojeong off as they slip out the front. 

The last thing the duo hear before the door closes is the beginning notes of a debate over what music to play now that Jisung is no longer hogging the speaker, and they share a knowing look as they walk side by side - an argument between Eunji and Chan could go on for _ ages _. ( They, unfortunately, know this from experience. )

“Not sad to miss out on that,” Seojeong says, and Felix nods in agreement. They definitely dodged a bullet on that one.

“I feel bad for Chan though,” Felix muses, shoving his hands into his pockets, “I know he’s technically the better debater, but Eunji is fucking _ scary _when she wants to be.”

Seojeong snorts. “You’re telling me. Every time she brings up my thing with Sookyung I feel my soul leave my body.”

“So you’re soulless Seojeong right now then?” Felix jokes.

“Damn right. Just give me a few minutes and it’ll come back, but until then…” She waves her hands in what is likely supposed to be a spooky way, but Felix just finds endearing. 

“Sure,” After a moment’s consideration, he nudges her with his elbow. “What _ is _your thing with Sookyung?”

Seojeong turns pink under the streetlights. “I dunno.” She kicks a little rock out of their way on the sidewalk. “I feel like I’m not super subtle about liking her but she’s never really _ said _anything…”

“You guys do keep going on these _ not-dates _ though, right? Isn’t she the one who suggests them?”

Seojeong nods, kicks out again even though there aren’t any more pebbles to hit. 

“Maybe that’s her way of saying something without _ saying _something,” Felix suggests, because Eunji is right: they are both painfully obvious about their affections. “Could just be that she’s waiting to make sure you’re comfortable. Or she wants you to meet her in the middle?”

She hums, unconvinced. 

“Yeah,” Felix sighs, “I guess I’m not the most qualified to give advice on this stuff.”

Seojeong laughs through her nose, “I won’t comment on that one.”

Felix makes a little whiny noise in the back of his throat and they drop the topic to chat about other things: how cool the brightly lit storefronts look at night, that it smells like it might rain later, how good the pizza was, how disgustingly cute Jisung and Minho are, what movie Sookyung wants to see. Soon enough, they reach their splitting point, and wave to each other as they head in different directions for the night.

Felix considers going home, but his head is swimming with too many thoughts from the long day, and he prefers to head to a more secluded place to do his best thinking. So he journeys on through the streets, passing in and out of yellow pools cast by the street lamps, squinting against the glare of car headlights and side-eyeing truly outrageous shop displays as he goes. 

When the buildings start falling away and the cars grow sparser, he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The sidewalk peels away from the main road, and Felix has to fish his phone out of his pocket to use as a flashlight. 

He carries on, mind bouncing from one insignificant thing to the next, until a small trail breaks off from the sidewalk, and he focuses on watching where his feet land as he abandons the main path. Felix picks his way carefully through dark, unkempt grass onto an old set of train tracks, and this is where the weight starts to lift from his chest for _ real _. A small laugh slips out of him, and he’s glad no one is around to hear him giggle about nothing. 

The tracks don’t stretch very far before the ground on either side of them begins to dip lower and two tall metal support beams stretch up to disappear into the dark sky. A few feeble wooden boards stretch between the poles to ward off wanderers, but Felix ducks under them easily. Past the barricade, the bridge opens up, and Felix wanders to its midpoint before turning the flashlight on his phone off and sitting down on the left track. He drops his bag to the ground beside him.

If he looks straight ahead through the rusted and crumblings side barriers, he can see the working bridge parallel to the old, boarded off train tracks, reaching across the river and loosely packed with brightly lit cars. If he tilts his head back, he can see a faint smattering of stars tossed across the velvety night. He sets his phone on the ground with his bag and leans back on his hands to admire the view of the sky. 

The moon is near full and bright enough that he can see everything around him lit in a ghostly glow. Even the water below ripples and shimmers like it knows secrets Felix doesn’t, but Felix’s eyes are for the stars alone. The longer he looks, the more come into focus. He’s never been great with spotting constellations, but the one exception - the one he can always find, his single constant companion - is Orion’s Belt. Orion himself is utterly lost to Felix, but he always finds the belt hanging above him like an arrow pointing him home. Felix looks to it whenever he feels particularly lost. 

Tonight, he stares up at it for so long that the minutes blur together and he loses track of time completely. 

He’s far enough from the road and the bustle of the city for all the noise to fall into the background, and Felix sinks completely into the depths of his own mind. The day plays back in his memory in flashes: each round of debates that they won, every bright smile on Seungmin’s face, all the nervous pokes Jisung jabbed into his thighs, Seungmin pulling him away from the group to sneak a quick snack he’d been hiding in his pocket, the group lunch Eunji had produced from an insulated bag, Seungmin’s bright eyes and boisterous laughter pulled out by something Felix had said, Seungmin letting Felix take his hand and drag him off in search of the water fountain, Seungmin barely breathing the moment after hearing they’d really won the whole damn thing. 

Felix grimaces, pushes off the palms of his hands to pace back and forth alongside the tracks. No matter what he does, his brain always finds its way back to this. To Seungmin. It’s as if he’s a compass, but a broken one - always aiming for Seungmin instead of pointing north like he should. He shakes his head. If only things between them were as simple as they are between Seojeong and Sookyung. If only there wasn’t a mile long chasm separating them. 

He sighs.

Maybe this is his own doing. Maybe he’s making too many one-sided assumptions. But then, it’d be hard not to. Or maybe none of it even matters, because the real kicker is that he doesn’t actually _ know _. 

_ Does Seungmin feel the same? _

There are times when he thinks maybe the answer is yes - times Seungmin’s touch is careful enough to make it feel special (to make _ him _feel special), times when Seungmin’s eyes twinkle like the stars overhead, when his laugh is loud and clear and just for Felix. 

But Seungmin pulls away, and Seungmin runs, and Felix has watched his retreating back disappear enough to last him a lifetime. Has enough texts that start and end with _ sorry _in his chat history to fill a gallery. And he thinks he knows why, but it doesn’t quite matter. Right now Seungmin is as far from his reach as the stars in the sky. He lets out a heavy breath and stops his pacing, running four finger along a portion of the side bar that is so rusted through it looks like one solid kick could break right through it, before his hands fall limp at his side. Maybe it’s for the best. 

_ ( He stops just before turning away from the desk. Within the mess of haphazardly stacked manilla folders, there is one that catches his eye. Sticking out an open side is the corner of a glossy photo, a familiar shade of red. ) _

A loud shout rings through the air, and Felix jumps as the shout is followed by crashing and the clanging of metal. The shout comes again, closer this time, _ angry _. Felix suddenly feels all too aware of the fact that he is a small, alone, and his martial arts training ended long enough ago that his skills are rusty at best. A sharp pang of fear shoots through him and he takes two quick steps away from the sound until his back is brushing against the side rails of the bridge. He tries to flatten himself against the barrier, hoping his dark clothes disguise him as part of the architecture, hoping whatever seems to be rushing towards him is something harmless and he’s scared over nothing.

His hopes are not answered. 

Before he has time to wonder what’s coming, it’s already there, right in front of him: a tall figure dressed head to toe - from their motorcycle helmet to their sturdy black boots - in black. For a moment, Felix can’t believe they’re managing to run as fast as they are. The moment passes when his brain catches up to what’s actually happening, and goes blank with fright. 

Just when it looks like the masked runner might dash right past him without ever knowing he’s there, something whizzes through the air and hits them from behind, stopping them dead in their tracks within a yard of where Felix stands frozen in shadow. Felix’s eyes fall to the ground, where one of the runner’s boots is stuck to the left track by a small mass of something white. His heart leaps into his throat. 

“Leaving so soon?” 

Felix’s heart drops down to his feet. 

Spiderman lands on the bridge, washed pale red and blue by the moon. “You know armed robbery is a crime, right?” Spiderman points a thumb over his shoulder. “The cops are already on their way, buddy. I just have to babysit until they get here with the cuffs.”

“Fuck off,” comes the runner’s muffled response as they struggle against the webbing anchoring them to the ground. Felix barely dares to breathe as the masked criminal twists and jerks… until the dark visor of their helmet is pointed right at him.

A nasty laugh cuts through the night. “How about you babysit _ this _, bug boy.”

And then there’s a heavy boot ramming into Felix’s chest, the sound of metal creaking and tearing, pain blooming across Felix’s back, and the sky spinning overhead. Felix tips back to the exposed edge of the bridge. And he falls. 

Spiderman screams his name. The stars rush away from Felix and cool air whips and curls around his body as he plummets, and Spiderman screams _ his name _. 

_ He was right _.

_ ( “Thanks! See you-” _

_ The call cuts off before Seungmin finishes, and Felix lets the phone fall from his ear, a sharp spike of disappointment stabbing through him. He reroutes away from Seungmin’s neighborhood and tries not to think about the hollow feeling in his chest. _

_ Instead of heading home and eating the food on his own, Felix turns himself in the direction of the precinct where his parents work. He doesn’t particularly have a taste for Seungmin’s usual order, but his parents could probably use the food if they’re as busy again tonight as they have been the last week or so. _

_ It’ll be nice to see them anyway; they’ve been like ghosts at home recently, with Felix only hearing their footsteps after he’s already gone to bed, or their voices in the morning before he leaves for school. The police might not be the most popular people in the city - especially with their anti-Spiderman agenda - but with Felix’s parents, they’re his moms before they’re cops, so he may be biased, but he thinks they’re kind of great. They definitely deserve a surprise dinner. _

_ So Felix wanders down the streets towards the police station, trying not to wonder what could’ve come up so suddenly and been so important that Seungmin had to flake on schoolwork. On _ ** _me_ ** _ , he tries not to think. He dodges his own green thoughts until the building he’s looking for looms across the street, and he can finally put thoughts of Seungmin and his constant ditching of plans to the back of his mind. _

_ In the front door and up the stairs because the elevator closes just before he gets to it and he doesn’t have the patience to wait for it to come back down, he walks into the bullpen with his head on a swivel, looking for familiar faces or hair. When he doesn’t spot either, he heads in the direction of one of their desks to set down his takeout bag while he goes in search of them. Before he can even drop the handles though, one of the other detectives waves his way. _

_ “Hey, Felix,” he says amicably, walking over. _

_ “Detective Park, hi.” _

_ “You looking for your parents?” _

_ Felix nods, “I brought some food for them.” _

_ Detective Park’s eyes fall to the takeout back and he makes an appreciative noise. “They’re in a briefing right now, but you can wait here for it to get out if you want. Won’t be too long now.” _

_ “Oh, cool. Thanks.” Felix spins the rolling chair to face him and shoots Detective Park a grin. He’s not particularly close with any of his parents’ coworkers, but Park has a kind face, good energy. He’s funny, in an old-person kind of way. Felix likes him. _

_ “Ain’t no thang,” Detective Park jokes. Then, “Please don’t tell your moms I said that to you.” _

_ Felix chokes back a laugh. “No worries, I won’t.” _

_ “Thanks,” he sighs, all in good fun. “Well have a good night. Don’t get too crazy when you leave or you’ll end up right back here, but on the other side of that door.” He points to the small detention room across the bullpen, but he’s laughing; they both know Felix is far from being a wild child. Park taps the desk once and then heads off towards the elevator with a parting wave. _

_ Felix eyes the briefing room’s shuttered windows, then looks back to his takeout bag and flops down into the spinny chair. He tugs Seungmin’s food out of the bag along with all the extras and cutlery that come with it, and arranges it all neatly on the desk next to a fat stack of case files. He’s about to push back and spin in lazy circles until his moms come out, but he stops just before turning away from the desk. Within the mess of haphazardly stacked manilla folders, there is one that catches his eye. Sticking out an open side is the corner of a glossy photo, a familiar shade of red. _

_ Felix scoots further into the desk and positions the takeout so no one across the bullpen can see him slip the file out of the stack. He lifts up the front gingerly, scared of being caught breaking the rules, but as soon as he sees the contents, he forgets all about legality. The file is filled with shiny pictures of Spiderman, ranging from blurry street shots to full on HDs. Felix’s breath catches in his throat. There are newspaper clippings and copies of police reports too, and they’re all about Spiderman. _

_ He leafs quickly through the reports, everything from petty theft to harassment and assault, even a few instances of organized crime, all stopped by Spiderman, or with his (unrequested) assistance. Felix glances up at the bullpen to make sure no one is looking his way before turning his attention to the glossy photos again. _

_ One in particular catches his eye, and he squints through the glare from the overheads reflecting off the picture. That’s… his highschool in the background, isn’t it? He looks to another shot, and in this one he recognizes the convenience store and deli he and his friends frequent after school. In another, the street Seungmin’s family lives on. In all the pictures, he realizes he recognizes something. _

_ There’s an odd twisting in his gut. He looks back to the newspaper clippings and reports. Each one is dated. The one at the top of the pile is from two days ago, the one below is three days old, there are four separate ones from this past Sunday, and on and on. Felix doesn’t realize what he’s looking for until he’s two weeks back, staring at a report of Spiderman getting mixed up in a nasty fight that he ended up fleeing when the cops started to take control of the situation with the criminals. There’s a note tacked on the bottom that Spiderman took a great many hits, including one right to the face. _

_ Felix all but stops breathing. _

_ Two weeks ago, Seungmin missed a day of school. The day after, he came in subdued and sluggish, concealer slathered over what was clearly a dark bruise blotting the skin from his cheek to his eyebrow. He’d brushed it off, said he slipped down the stairs late at night and beaned his face on the handrail at the bottom, but he hadn’t stayed after for debate club. He hadn’t ever mentioned it again. _

_ Something writhes in Felix’s stomach, spreads through his veins like acid. All these dates, they line up with texts he has from Seungmin, saying something came up, he’s too busy to hang out. All these pictures are places they frequent, all near Seungmin’s two main residencies: school and his home. Felix’s eyes widen. Hadn’t Seungmin’s flakiness started… right around the same time Spiderman cropped up. _

_ He drops the file like it’s burned his skin. Papers and shiny pictures slip and slide across the desk and he races to stuff them all in the manilla folder again before anyone notices what he’s seen. His heart catches in his throat and he can barely swallow around it, hands shaking as he rips them away from the desk and wrings them together in his lap. He can’t believe this, he can’t believe this, he can’t believe- _

_ “Felix?” _

_ He practically jumps out of his skin at the sound of his mother’s voice. “Mom!” He leaps up from the chair and turns wide eyes on her. _

_ “Hi, sweetie. What’ve you got here?” _

_ For a moment, Felix thinks she’s noticed that the Spiderman file isn’t quite as she left it, but she gestures to the takeout, and some of the panic leaves him. _

_ “I brought you and Mum dinner. Actually I don’t know if it’ll be enough for both of you because it’s only one serving, but I figured you could share and it’d be better than nothing, right?” He sounds too flustered, rambled too much. Surely she knows something is up. She’ll find out what he knows. _

_ But she only smiles. “Thanks sugar plum, your Mum and I will enjoy it.” She circles the desk and pulls him in for a hug. “My boy’s so thoughtful.” She squeezes lightly into the hug and Felix forgets his worries for a moment, just melts into her arms until she lets him go. “Mum’ll be a few more minutes, d’you wanna wait to see her or are you booked full?” _

_ Felix hesitates. He _ does _ want to see her, but panic is starting to slam into him again, crawling up his throat and choking him, and he doesn’t think he can make it a few more minutes. He picks the takeout bag with his food up off the desk and gives his mom an apologetic look. “I’ve got that global affairs project to do, so... I should probably get going. I’ll see you at home later anyway, right? Tell Mum her I love her for me?” _

_ Felix’s mom does her best not to wilt, nodding and offering a small smile. “Course, sweetie.” _

_ The words release Felix from his spot like a gun signalling the start of a race. He spins and takes off across the bullpen as quickly as he can without raising suspicion. _

_ “Love you!” His mom calls after him. _

_ “Love you too,” he lobs over his shoulder before slipping into the elevator. The doors close, boxing him in. He’s the only one inside the lift, and there’s only one thought in his head. One thing screaming through his body and lighting him on fire from the inside out. He can’t believe it, but doesn’t know what else to think. He can’t believe it, but there’s only one thing that makes sense. _

_ Seungmin is Spiderman. ) _

SEUNGMIN

Seungmin notices him a moment too late. Sees his face only as he stumbles backwards and the moon hits his cheeks head on. 

Seungmin watches Felix fall, and screams.

Everything else drops away. He forgets all about the criminal he just chased here, about the police sirens that have now gotten close enough to hear. Seungmin abandons everything, leaps forward and dives after Felix. Plummeting towards the river below, illuminated by the moonlight, Felix looks like a shooting star; beautiful even as he falls. 

Seungmin aims an arm towards him and shoots out a rope of webbing. It hits Felix’s chest, and Seungmin can feel the impact reverberate back up to his arm. He closes his other fist around the rope and yanks, sending himself hurtling down even faster. Just before they collide in midair, he angles back towards the bridge and sends off another shot. It secures itself against one of the side bars of the bridge just in time for Seungmin to ram into Felix.

All the air rushes out of his lungs at the impact, but he wraps an arm tight around Felix before they can fall apart, using his other to grip the webbing anchoring them to the bridge. Their descent slows as the webbing grows strained and taut, but Seungmin’s seen it bear much greater loads before; it won’t break on them.

It doesn’t, but the bridge does.

The bar Seungmin’s webbing is anchored on buckles under the weight and momentum of two falling bodies, and with a sharp jerk, the strain on Seungmin’s arm vanishes and they begin to fall like stones, untethered once more. 

Felix’s arms are suddenly impossibly tight around Seungmin’s middle, and they’re falling too fast for another shot of webbing at the bridge, so Seungmin can do nothing but clutch Felix to his chest and try to angle them feet first at the river rushing up to meet them. He squeezes his eyes shut and braces for the impact.

He hears the splash before he feels anything. Then the cold and the pain hit him together, and he can’t breathe as water wraps around their bodies and sucks them under. His feet and legs ache where the water slammed against them, but as the realization that he can’t see anything below the surface of the river hits him, he forgets all about the pain. 

Moonlight dances dim and hazy somewhere above him, but they’re still sinking, down down _ down _, stones in the dark. A second crash sounds above them, but Seungmin barely registers it. By the time his body has recovered from the shock of impact and he can kick out to slow their descent, they’re already deep enough that the light of the moon has vanished, buried by the depths. Panic swells in Seungmin’s chest and crawls up his throat, and his lungs burn as he struggles not to breathe. 

_ Up _, he thinks, pulling an arm from around Felix to flutter through the water around them, to provide some assistance to his desperately kicking legs. He can feel himself moving, but icy water is rushing through his ears and sending his inner compass into a broken, spinning frenzy; he’s not sure if they’re moving up or down. 

Before he can flounder any longer, the grip around his middle vanishes, and the pressure against his chest drifts away, knocking his other arm free. Instinct sends his muscles into action, and he glides up before it registers that he doesn’t have Felix, can’t see him through the gloom. A silent scream catches in his throat and he scrambles, risks getting himself hopelessly turned around until his hand catches on something floating in the water nearby. Even soaking wet and freezing, he recognizes the feeling of his webbing, and a thought sparks in his mind even as it reels from oxygen deprivation. He tugs on the rope and feels resistance on the other end: Felix. The webbing must still cling stubbornly to him.

Seungmin doesn’t waste any more precious time - he wraps the rope around his wrist and turns his head skyward. His arms and legs kick out together, strong strokes that propel him upwards even with the extra weight, fighting against the stiffness brought on by the freezing river. Felix must be swimming up too, because the rope goes slack and taut in bursts, like he’s moving on his own as well. 

Light begins to seep into Seungmin’s vision, and there’s a small cheer of success stuck inside of him as the moon-rippled surface grows closer. The cheer dies with a spluttering choke as the rope connecting him to Felix goes taut again, but this time, only grows tighter. Their progress slows and the taste of success turns sour on Seungmin’s tongue. The rope digs into his suit, enough pressure to surely leave bruises on the skin - dark blues and purples like an autumn garden - but it’s cold enough that Seungmin doesn’t feel the pain. He doesn’t feel anything but a new swell of panic as he cuts through the water against the weight of two bodies.

Felix is no longer swimming. He refuses to think about what that means - to think about anything but closing the distance between them and the moon, anything but getting to the surface. 

His vision goes black around the edges. His head feels as though it’s slowly being crushed in a compactor and his body screams from the strain, but he kicks out and drags his arms down and down again until the sky is right there, within his reach. 

His fingers break the surface first, then his head and his shoulders, and he drags in a wet, shuddering breath through his suit where it clings to his lips. Kicking his legs harder than ever to stay afloat, Seungmin wraps both hands around the rope and tugs and tugs until he’s slipping back under the water to balance the force of dragging Felix up. But Felix’s limp body connects with Seungmin’s again, and it doesn’t matter what it took to get him there. 

Seungmin wraps an arm around Felix’s ribs and kicks until they break the surface again. Felix’s head lolls and his eyes are closed, and fear arcs through Seungmin, even colder than the water. He forces himself to look away and turn his attention to shore. As soon as he figures out which riverbank is closest, he takes off, swimming for it like his life depends on it. It’s Felix’s life on the line, but Seungmin moves like it’s his own. 

He can’t lose Felix. He _ can’t _.

His arm slaps loudly against the river, and they’re low enough, far enough from the traffic of the bridge, that it’s all he can hear. The rhythmic beat fills his ears and aligns with the rapid pounding of his heart. His breaths come short, half of what they could be when filtered through the wet fabric of his suit, but they’re enough to keep him going until he gets the bank and hauls himself up onto it, Felix immediately after. 

Seungmin is ready to collapse right then and there, but Felix is sprawled sopping on the ground in front of him, and he isn’t breathing. Panic threatens to overload Seungmin’s brain, but training and muscle memory kick in before he has a chance to spiral. The movements of CPR are wired into his body after being dragged by Wonpil to classes for certification and recertification year after year, ever since turning twelve, and he thanks everything in the universe for it as his hands land on Felix’s chest and he begins compressions on instinct. 

_ Compression to ventilation ratio of 30:2 is recommended for adults, _ flies through his brain, and he lifts one shaky hand to push up his mask so his mouth is exposed before dropping it quickly back to Felix’s chest to ensure proper compressions. His own breaths are short, rattling through his lungs as he fights back a wave of terror. _ What if this doesn’t work _? He shakes his head, blinking back burning tears. 

It has to work.

He hits his count and leans down, one hand tipping Felix’s chin down, the other pinching his nose. Seungmin’s breath comes shaky with fear, but he forces himself to keep going. He can’t fall apart now, not while Felix is still motionless, unresponsive. 

He starts compressions again. 

It feels like years. Bile climbs up Seungmin’s throat and threatens to choke him, but he keeps going. Compressions, breath, compressions, breath, until he can’t feel his hands and his lungs threaten to give out from swallowing back tears. Felix’s eyes stay shut. 

Eventually Seungmin can’t hold back the sob bursting up from his chest, and the broken cry leaps from his throat and cuts through the night air, ringing against the water as it goes. In the moment of weakness, his rhythm breaks and his hands dig harder into Felix’s chest than they have been. Curse on his tongue, Seungmin attempts to steady himself again to keep from causing any harm to Felix, but his hands are knocked away as Felix’s chest jerks on its own.

Felix’s lips fall open, and when he coughs there’s nothing but water. Seungmin gingerly rolls Felix’s head to the side so he doesn’t choke on the water all over again, and stares as his body shakes with ragged, spluttering coughs, until all there’s no water left to spit up.

Relief slams into Seungmin with the force of a freight train and nearly bowls him over. 

Felix is alive. 

For a long moment, Felix stays curled half away from Seungmin, and Seungmin forgets to breathe. Finally, Felix’s head lolls back towards Seungmin, and his eyes are open and semi-alert this time. It strikes a chord in Seungmin that he’s never felt before. 

“S’min,” Felix mumbles, voice garbled by the strain of speech.

“Yeah,” Seungmin says shakily, “Spiderman.”

“Nnnn,” Felix coughs again, whimpers and winces in pain. When he speaks, his voice is low, wrecked, “Seungmin.”

Seungmin’s heart stops. “W-what?”

Felix’s brows furrow as he looks bearily up at Seungmin. “I…. you,” he wheezes, face crumpling, “Seungmin.”

Seungmin’s jaw drops and his heart jackrabbits in his chest. How does Felix know? He’s been _ careful _. How-

The soft brush of fingers sends a hush over his loud, spinning head. He glances down, and Felix’s hand is reaching weakly for him. Seungmin is helpless to do anything but reach out as well, closing his suited hand over Felix’s cold, shaking one. He knows he should play it cool, should say Felix is delirious from almost drowning. He shouldn’t give it away this easily, but all that ends up whispering past his lips is, “you know?”

Felix nods, fingers still searching for purchase around Seungmin’s, and Seungmin splinters down the middle. “Felix…” he says, and it sounds painfully wounded even to him. His near-shattered heart is lodged high in his throat, warping his voice.

Before he can say anything more, something tickles up his spine, sharp like lightning. His head snaps up from Felix to the bridges hanging across the river, and his heart squeezes. Red and blue light flashes through the air and it’s a wonder Seungmin didn’t notice sooner. Stopped at the edge of the working bridge is a police car, a uniformed officer standing at the rail in front of it. Seungmin can see the glare of their flashlights pointing at him. Across the water, on the old, abandoned train tracks, there are two more policemen.

Seungmin bites back a curse, then realizes the opportunity. “Felix,” he murmurs, “I think I should get you up to the cops so they can get you help. Do you think you can manage?”

Felix winces at the prospect of moving, but there’s this look in his eyes, this absolute trust, that tells a different story. He nods up at Seungmin, eyes glinting in the moonlight. 

“Okay,” Seungmin lets out a breath, “I need you to hold on as tight as you can.”

Felix nods again, and Seungmin pulls the bottom of his mask back down to cover his whole face. He takes a steadying breath and wraps his arms around Felix, slow enough that the movement doesn’t jostle him and he has time to shift and cling to Seungmin’s torso. Another breath, and Seungmin stands, pulling Felix up to his toes, trying not to think about how his heart cracks at the sound of Felix’s pained gasp. Seungmin takes a single moment to steady himself, then aims an arm at the bridge he knows _ won’t _collapse under their weight, fires a shot of long distance webbing, and leaps. 

Now he is Spiderman. He’s not weak, he’s not scared, there is no heavy ache in his chest. He is the suit and the mask and he has a civilian in his arms as he swings up to the edge of the road, landing in the bike lane a few car lengths away from the police cruiser. 

He releases his hold on Felix slowly, unwilling to let him go when he still looks so unsteady. Seungmin almost thinks he should lay down on the ground again, but Felix takes a wobbly step back and Seungmin’s throat closes before he can say anything. Felix’s fingers still clutch tight to his suit, and the water dripping from his soaked hair makes it hard to tell if there are tears in his eyes, or if it’s just more of the river streaking down his face. 

Seungmin swallows, hard, and looks away. The police officer is hurrying towards them. _ You’re Spiderman, _ he reminds himself, _ act like it _. “This boy needs medical attention,” he calls out to the officer. Then, softer, only for Felix to hear, “I have to go. Will you be okay?”

Felix blinks, looks up at Seungmin intently. He nods. The policeman is almost to them. “Go,” he whispers, releasing his hold on Seungmin.

So Seungmin steps back, drops his hands from around Felix, and jumps over the edge of the bridge. 

Spiderman webs away, vanishing into the night.

FELIX

Felix barely remembers anything after watching Seungmin disappear. 

Somehow he ends up in the back of a cop car, shock blanket draped over his shaking shoulders while they wait for an ambulance to arrive. They made him sit there when they figured he couldn’t stand on his own. 

“Someone saw you go over the edge and had already called for one,” the cop tells him to explain why he hasn’t called for an ambulance himself, though Felix doesn’t ask. 

“Are you Felix Lee?” Another questions, and this one is new - arrived after Felix. “We recovered a bag and this cell phone from the train tracks; that’s the name on it.” 

Felix nods numbly, jaw clenched to keep his teeth from chattering. 

“Got parents we can call, kid?” One officer asks, voice gruff. Felix thinks another officer elbows the gruff one in the ribs, but he’s not paying them much attention. His eyes are unfocused, and he barely hears himself answer them over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. If they say anything more, it’s not to him, and it’s not important enough to make sure he hears.

Soon enough, the wail of a siren cuts through the white noise in his head, and the officers are herding Felix out of the backseat and into the calm hands of paramedics with the promise of speaking further at a later time, when he’s not in shock. He doesn’t even nod before they disappear from his sight.

The paramedics sit him down in the back of the ambulance, speak briefly to the cops, and then they drive off towards the hospital without much fanfare. A young woman with a kind face wraps another layer of blankets around Felix and she and her partner check his vitals. They run through some more tests and checks, explaining them as they go, but Felix barely registers any of it. At some point the woman swabs at his forehead, first with something wet that stings where it touches, next with something cottony. Then she smooths a cream over his skin and covers it with a bandage, pressing lightly at the edges to ensure it sticks.

It isn’t until they appear to be done for the duration of the drive and the paramedic sits down across from Felix that he forces himself back to clarity. “I heard you fell off a bridge and into the river,” she starts, “I’m surprised you’re conscious.”

_ I didn’t fall all the way, _ he considers saying, _ Spiderman caught me, cut the fall in half… probably saved my life. _ But he stays silent. Speech feels wrong, leaves his throat feeling swollen and raw. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. No matter how kind this woman looks, he doesn’t want to talk to her. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone. So he doesn’t. 

Felix doesn’t speak a word all the way to the hospital. Doesn’t say anything as he’s admitted and ushered into a room. Not even as a nurse helps him change out of his still wet clothes and dry off enough to get into a hospital gown. It’s all a blur of faces and voices he doesn’t recognize, doesn’t register. Nothing sticks with him until he finally hears the warmth of his name in a familiar tone.

“Felix!” His moms cry in tandem, their voices melting together into one.

Felix lets out a shaky breath as they rush to his side and both start speaking at once. 

“Are you all right? Some officers called the precinct and asked for us and said it was about you - that you fell off that old closed bridge and were on the way to the hospital!”

“Sweetie are you okay? They said they were pursuing a suspect and somehow you got caught up in the middle! What happened?”

Before Felix can make sense of either of their stories or any of their questions, a doctor walks through the door and half their attention turns to her. The doctor holds up a practiced hand to hush the room, and Felix blanks again. 

Everything happens as if in a dream. The doctor speaks with his parents; a nurse comes in and shuffles about, adjusting things Felix can just barely see out of the corner of his eyes; the doctor speaks with the nurse. All of it happens like he isn’t even there. 

He tips his head back against the pillows the nurse had propped him up on and stares at the bright white ceiling until it’s too much to bear. He closes his eyes. He sees only a rippling darkness, the promise of the moon overhead, snuffed out by a jagged shape, sinking towards him, blocking out the light, knocking into him before he can dodge. That’s the last thing he remembers before Seungmin’s face a breath away from his, mask pushed up to reveal his lips and chin and neck. He shudders.

“Mr. Lee, I’m afraid I have to ask you to stay with us.”

He opens his eyes. The doctor and his parents are all looking at him. The nurse is gone. 

“Do you mind telling us what happened?” The doctor asks.

Felix nods. His throat still feels raw, his mouth still tastes off, _ dirty _ . He’s been queasy since Seungmin left him on the bridge. He _ does _mind. He doesn’t want to recap how one of the best days turned into one of the worst nights at the drop of a dime. 

“Felix,” his mum sighs.

Felix presses his lips together and averts his eyes.

“Well, how about I say what _ I _know to start. Detectives, your son is reported to have fallen from a decommissioned bridge and into the river, and it appears that he was pulled out and resuscitated before being brought to our ambulance for transport and care. The primary paramedic who brought him in said he presents symptoms of choking and nearly drowning. He has sustained a minor head trauma in addition to the physical trauma of impact on the water, as well as bruising to the torso. We’ll want to keep him overnight for monitoring, however, the majority of his injuries are luckily quite minor, and if all goes well he should be discharged in the morning.”

“That doesn’t _ sound _minor,” his mum mutters. Louder, to Felix, she asks, “Who gave you CPR?”

Felix stays silent, shaking his head as much as he can bear. If he answers this, he’ll have to answer everything, and the last thing he wants right now is an extended discussion of the night’s events.

( Of Spiderman. )

“_ Why _?” His mom asks.

“Hurts,” Felix mumbles, gesturing to his throat, hoping it’s enough to get them off his back. He loves them, he really does, and he _ wants _them here, too, but he hasn’t processed any of what’s happened enough to talk about it yet. How can he explain it to them when he doesn’t even understand it all himself?

Luckily, this seems to be a decent excuse. The doctor dips her head and says something about getting an aid for the pain, and promptly leaves the room. Felix’s moms both pull chairs up to his bedside. 

“‘M sorry. We just want you to be okay.”

“Whenever you’re ready to talk, we’re here for you.”

His mom lays a careful hand on his wrist, and Felix realizes how cold he is. Cold like when you’ve been standing out in the wind so long that you go numb beneath your clothes. Cold and numb and battered blue. 

It’s a relief when he finally falls asleep.

Come morning, Felix feels markedly better. Although this means less after considering that the bar to surpass was in the dirt on the ground, it’s still _ something _ . He gives a long-awaited explanation of what’d happened the night before. Pointedly looking away from the officer who has come in to hear his story, as well as from his parents, he says that _ yes _, it’d been Spiderman who saved him - Spiderman who kept him from shattering upon impact with the water, who dredged him out of the river after he’d managed to swim right into sinking debris, who breathed life back into him and brought him to safety.

When there’s not much more to tell, Felix asks the uniformed officer following up on the case if the robber who’d kicked him off the bridge had at least been caught. The officer turns slightly green as he informs Felix that while the criminal had been gone by the time police arrived on the scene, another officer had picked them up later that night after finding them bruised and webbed to the side of a building a precinct over. 

Felix breathes a sigh of relief. He knows he was just collateral, just a distraction to give the criminal a chance to get away, but still… it’s reassuring to know that they’re locked up - that they can’t hurt him again. 

After the police business wraps up, the hospital business comes to a close as well. Felix’s nurse double checks that he’s doing better _ (on the upswing, they say) _, and there are forms to fill out and sign, fresh clothes to change into, teeth to brush (fucking finally), but after all the bureaucratic and technical tasks are complete, Felix is free to go. He’s ushered off with instructions he hardly listens to because he knows his moms are both paying rapt attention and will surely relay the information to him again later, and then they’re out. Felix leaves the clinical white confines of the hospital and heads for home.

At some point his things must have been passed along to his parents, because they return his phone to him after arriving home safely. He thanks them, a little guiltily, as it’s the first thing he’s said since being discharged, but they give only soft smiles in return. There will be soup for dinner, they tell him, and he can call (or text) either of them if he needs anything - they’ll be right down the hall. Before he heads off to hide in his room so he can finally just _ sit _ and _ think _ and _ breathe _ , he wraps them both up in a hug, and mumbles an _ I love you _. Then they let him go, and he’s grateful.

Though making it home had involved a good deal of sitting, there had been enough walking to leave Felix shaky and exhausted by the time he closes his bedroom door. He collapses as gently as possible onto his bed, drawing a blanket around himself as he wriggles closer to his pillows. Staying vaguely upright seems like it might’ve been one of the nurse’s orders, so Felix settles himself into a half propped up position before going limp. If he moves again at all in the foreseeable future, it’ll be too soon. 

The sun shines through his window, pooling on the floor and the foot of the bed, and Felix realizes he’d barely seen the sun at all the day before. He realizes it really was only yesterday that he’d spent all day holed up inside for the debate tournament - just _ yesterday _that he’d been eating celebratory pizza at Chan’s place with the rest of his team. He stares at the sunspots and it seems impossible to wrap his head around. It feels like an entire week had passed in between that final victory and the moment he’s living now. So much has happened that he can’t believe it’s all been packed into less than twenty-four hours.

The thought makes his head ache, so he casts his eyes away from the sun and forces his mind elsewhere. He aches enough already: his legs, his chest, his back, his throat, hell his head too, even _ before _the realization that it had taken barely any time at all for his life to get thrown completely off balance. 

He wonders if Seungmin is all right. Hadn’t he taken the brunt of the fall, been forced to drag not only himself, but Felix as well, all the way to shore? Hadn’t he webbed off after it all and caught that nasty robber all over again, for good this time? 

Felix clutches the blanket tighter to himself and resists the urge to reach for his phone. It’s not like he can just text Seungmin and ask, and at this thought, a wave of sadness crashes over him. How isolating must it be for Seungmin - to live this double life, to keep so many secrets, to turn his body red and blue with a suit even as cuts and bruises surely paint his skin the same color, to be unable to tell anyone the truth? Seungmin is all the beauty and grace and intensity of a twilight sky and no one can know. Felix squeezes his eyes shut, and he aches with feeling.

He’s not sure how long he stays there, thoughts spinning away from Seungmin and then falling right back as if pulled by some mysterious gravity. Although maybe it’s not entirely mysterious to Felix why he can’t get Seungmin out of his head; it was like this even before the addition of Spiderman to the equation. 

Suddenly, as if his thoughts of gravity have somehow imparted him with his own, a voice calls to him from just outside his door. “Felix, someone’s here to see you. Are you up for that or do you want me to tell him you’re asleep.” 

“Who is it?” Felix asks, heart in his throat.

A moment’s pause. “Seungmin,” his mum says, muffled through the door.

Felix’s heart lodges itself firmly in his mouth. “Please let him in,” he says, sounding strangled.

“Of course.”

Footsteps fade out down the hall and a moment later Felix hears the loud click of their front door falling shut. Felix tenses under his blanket, pushes it off his shoulders and scoots to the edge of the bed. He _ feels _himself stop breathing. 

The footsteps return, lighter this time, and then the doorknob to Felix’s room is turning slowly right before his eyes. The door opens even slower, and Felix’s chest burns as it reveals Seungmin inch by inch, standing hesitantly in the doorway, watching him with worried eyes.

For a moment, neither of them say anything. In the silence, everything that’s been bubbling up inside of Felix for the past twenty-four hours, for the past two _ weeks _, froths with a vengeance like a pot set to simmer suddenly cranked up to boiling. It’s all too much. Felix’s already battered edges splinter under the pressure, and his walls shatter into pieces right there in his own bedroom. 

His shoulders shake, then his lips, and Felix bursts into tears.

SEUNGMIN

Seungmin remembers watching Felix fall. Time had been slippery, slick as oil as it ran through his fingers like water while he stood there, frozen. It had been quicksand pooling around his ankles and tethering him to the spot, wide eyed and sinking. Time had raced away from him and he almost hadn’t leapt in time - almost hadn’t made it to Felix soon enough to stop his fall. Time had grown wings and flown off until Seungmin’d had Felix in his arms, breathing shakily on the ground, and relief had set the world right again.

After that time seemed to have slowed, turned sluggish. As Seungmin had webbed away from Felix on the bridge like an arrow loosed from a bow - tense but sharp and ready to devastate - time had seemed to drag on forever. He’d been shellshocked and scared, but fear had burned like a hot flame through him and chased the fog from his mind long enough for him to track down the escaped criminal, to connect foot and fist to back and jaw, and web the bastard tight enough to a wall that they wouldn’t be able to get away again. 

But when he’d finally done it, finally watched a police car drive off with the criminal caged in the backseat, he lost all the sharp edges of the arrow he’d become. He’d simply been a boy again. A boy who felt like years had passed when in reality it’d barely been an hour. A boy who missed his friend desperately, but knew the last thing he could do was go visit him now. A boy who had to wait.

It had been the waiting that killed him - sneaking home and shedding the suit like a second skin, showering in burning hot water as if it’d be able to chase the cold of the river from his bones, trying to fall asleep to the sounds of the city and of his heart crying for Felix - all of it. Seconds had felt like hours, and none of the hours had brought him closer to Felix. 

It had been unbearable.

But if time had been slow then, now it grinds to a halt, stopping altogether as Seungmin watches Felix crumble right before his eyes.

The door closes behind him and his first instinct is to close the distance between them, wrap Felix up in his arms and hold him tight enough to glue all the scattered pieces of him back together. All he wants is to tuck his head against dirty blonde hair and make sure Felix is okay, to keep him close until he’s better. Seungmin doesn’t know if he should, though - if he’s allowed, if it would even help. Something has changed between them, and now he’s not sure what’s best for Felix, what Felix wants. Where he stands.

The smallest of movements catches him and holds fast, keeping him from spiralling deeper into his own head; Felix makes a weak grabbing motion at him in a silent cry for comfort, and suddenly all Seungmin knows is that he’s standing a breath away from Felix and Felix’s eyes are filled with tears, but they look like they’re filled with galaxies. 

Seungmin’s heart aches.

Felix lifts shaky arms and throws them around Seungmin, pulling him down to the bed at his side. Seungmin falls easily into the motion, and his arms move to wrap around Felix’s middle of their own accord. 

Felix nestles his face just below the junction of Seungmin’s neck, right above his heart. The sound of already quiet cries is muffled further by Seungmin’s pullover, but Seungmin can feel the shaky rise and fall of Felix’s chest again him. Felix takes small, shuddering breaths, in an attempt to quell the tears, but it’s slow-going. Seungmin traces arcing lines into Felix’s back through the thin fabric of his tee, and hopes it’s enough comfort in the silence.

They wait a while like that - Felix shaking slightly in Seungmin’s arms, clutching him like he’s scared to let go - until Felix’s soft cries fade away and his shakes ease to trembles and then to whispers of movement. 

“Sorry,” Felix says, voice strained and muffled.

“It’s okay.” Seungmin’s not sure what else to say. “Are you okay?”

“It’s just… a lot.” Felix lifts his head from Seungmin’s collar, but keeps his eyes pointed just past Seungmin’s shoulder. “Everything… it’s just a lot.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Seungmin searches Felix’s face, though he’s not sure what he’s looking for. Felix’s eyes are rimmed in red and his cheeks are wet and blotchy, but he’s still so handsome. Tears in his eyes and tracking down his cheeks, shining on his lips, Felix still looks like everything Seungmin wants. But he schools himself, can’t ignore the pain painted across Felix’s skin. Can’t ignore the fact that Felix had cried as soon as he set foot in his room. “Should I not have come?”

“No,” Felix says quickly. “No, I needed to see you. To,” he takes a breath, “to talk.

Seungmin stiffens without meaning to, and Felix’s eyes finally snap to him. 

“To thank you,” Felix says before Seungmin’s mind can get away from him. “And to apologize.”

Seungmin shakes his head gently. “You don’t have to.”

“I do,” Felix insists, his grip on Seungmin tightening before he remembers himself. “If you hadn’t been there…”

Seungmin’s breath catches. Of course it’s not a surprise, but to hear it confirmed out loud in the light of day - that Felix really does know - still takes his breath away. “Don’t think about that,” he says quietly.

Felix looks like he wants to say more, but he must see something in Seungmin’s eyes, because he drops it. 

Silence falls again and they sit there, holding each other though Felix is no longer crying, until Seungmin can’t bear to keep quiet any longer. “How did you know?” His voice is soft, laced with confusion and curiosity. He had been _ so _careful. 

“You called my name,” Felix answers, voice just as soft, impossibly low. His doe eyes, still glassy from tears, are wide and focused entirely on Seungmin. “When I fell, I heard you calling my name; that’s when I knew for sure.”

Seungmin bites his lip and misses the way Felix’s eyes catch on the movement when he glances away. “I guess I couldn’t help it,” he mumbles, looking back to Felix again, “I was so scared I wasn’t thinking.”

“You were scared?” Felix sounds almost surprised, but he shouldn’t be. “I was the one falling though.”

Seungmin nods, thumb brushing against Felix’s back again. “I know.”

Felix blinks at him, swallows, says nothing. Seungmin feels heat at the tips of his ears. He clears his throat. “You said that’s when you knew for sure,” he says, slightly strangled, “was there something before that, then?”

“Yeah,” Felix nods, “I saw…” he hesitates. “I saw a file in my mom’s stuff. On Spiderman. There were all these police reports with dates that were the same as days you cancelled plans-”

Seungmin winces.

“-But the one that got me was, um,” Felix detaches one of his arms from around Seungmin and lifts a careful hand to the side of his face, close but not touching, “remember that time you came to school with a huge bruise here?” Felix ghosts his fingers over the skin of Seungmin’s cheekbone.

Seungmin swallows thickly. “Yeah,” he chokes out.

Felix withdraws his hand a bit, fingers curling down towards his palm. “That was right after a huge fight Spiderman had, apparently. The report said he took a ton of hits, but the one to the face was what did it.” Felix pulls his hand the rest of the way away, resting it in his lap. He looks away from Seungmin. “I thought it explained a lot.”

“Oh.” Seungmin feels… strange. He’s not sure what he feels. “How long ago?”

Felix casts his eyes to his lap. The hand he still has fisted in Seungmin’s pullover twitches. “Two weeks - the night you cancelled our plans to work on that global affairs project. I’d already gotten food for you so I brought it to my moms at work. That’s where I saw the file.”

“Oh,” Seungmin says again. That means Felix had known when he cancelled on their team sleepover a week before the tournament. That means Felix had known yesterday, when he flaked on the team party. That means Felix had known all this time and never said anything. That means… Felix had known his secret and nothing had changed between them, as Seungmin had feared.

Seungmin breathes in through his nose. Last night he’d been up for ages and ages, head spinning with thoughts of Felix. He’d been scared he’d done something wrong, that Felix wouldn’t really be okay. He’s been scared that even if Felix was okay, things would feel different, that things would change. All night he’d felt like a compass set to frantic whirling by a strong magnetic force, not sure where he’d end up facing when the dust settled and morning light made everything clear. He’d hoped desperately that whatever new north he found wouldn’t point him away from Felix. 

He breathes out. “So you… you’re not freaked out about me being… him?”

Felix offers a half laugh and looks back up to Seungmin. “No, I was super freaked out at first.”

Seungmin’s heart drops.

“But then I saw you at school again and you were just… you. So I kind of calmed down. You’re still the same person you were before.” Felix gives him a small and Seungmin’s heart leaps right back into his throat. “Honestly, after a bit it was kind of a relief; I was starting to worry you just didn’t like me anymore.”

“I could never,” Seungmin says without thinking. Felix pauses, eyes widening, and heat pricks at Seungmin’s cheeks.

“Well…” Felix’s hand twitches where it grips the fabric of Seungmin’s pullover again, “I was wrong. I didn’t realize how dangerous what you do is. I mean I guess I knew, but I didn’t _ know _.” His eyes go dark with memory.

Seungmin rubs both his hands down Felix’s back, the movement choppy as his sweaty palms catch on the thin material. “Hey,” he says gently, “I know last night was bad, but it’s not always like that.”

“Sometimes it’s worse,” Felix says.

The image of Felix tipping over the edge of the bridge flashes in Seungmin’s memory again. He shakes his head. Nothing is worse than that. He’d take a dozen hits right to the face (no matter how much they fucking _ suck _) to keep Felix safe, to make sure nothing like last night ever happens again. 

“Most of the time it’s just cats in trees and purse-snatchers. Just small neighborhood stuff.”

Felix looks unconvinced. There’s still the blue of fear in his brown eyes.

Seungmin runs a hand in a small arc along the base of Felix’s back, fingers skimming lightly over the fabric of his shirt. “I know what I’m doing… ninety-eight percent of the time,” he assures Felix. When Felix doesn’t answer, Seungmin sighs, fingers still dancing along the dip in Felix’s spine. “Trust me?” 

Felix doesn’t hesitate before nodding. For a moment he seems surprised by himself, as if he had agreed on instinct without thought, but soon the apprehension and fear fade from his eyes and he nods again. Felix lets out a breath and his shoulders slump. “Yeah, okay.” He meets Seungmin’s gaze with more certainty, “I trust you. Of course I do.”

Seungmin smiles, cheeks as warm as his heart feels.

“I don’t want to see you hurt,” Felix confesses. 

“Don’t worry, I’m always careful. And when I’m not… well, I heal fast.”

“I thought you were _ ‘always careful,’” _Felix quotes, but he doesn’t sound upset.

Seungmin bites his bottom lip again. “I’m ninety-eight percent always careful.”

Felix laughs thought his nose and drops his head onto Seungmin’s shoulder. “That sounds right.”

“So… we’re good?” Seungmin asks, voice softening again.

“Yeah,” Felix mutters into the green of Seungmin’s pullover. He picks his head up again and suddenly his face is much too close. Seungmin can see every star in the smattering of freckles across Felix’s skin, make out the pockets of honey and molasses in his shining brown eyes. He tries very hard to keep his eyes from slipping down to Felix’s petal pink lips. 

Felix blinks rapidly, tipping his head and swallowing hard. Seungmin realizes he’s staring at Felix and should probably lean back, glance away, but he’s frozen. Felix is so close Seungmin is afraid he can hear the pounding of his heart as it threatens to beat right out of his chest. Felix blinks again and Seungmin wants to move closer, close the distance between them, but he’s not sure. He doesn’t want to ruin things if Felix doesn’t feel the same. 

So Seungmin shifts back a hair and the moment is broken.

Felix looks down at his hands, and his pink ears must be a trick of the light. “Look,” he starts, “I…” Felix stops like he’s thought better of whatever he wanted to say. 

“Felix?” There’s an almost desperate curiosity in Seungmin’s voice, painting Felix’s name a different shade on his tongue than he’s used to.

“It’s nothing,” Felix shakes his head. The arm he still has around Seungmin’s middle goes lax, and his hand curls and falls away from Seungmin’s back like a wilted flower. 

Seungmin sucks in a breath and follows Felix’s lead. He pulls his arms from around Felix even though moving away feels nearly impossible - like he’s magnetized, caught in Felix’s pull. But he doesn’t want to make Felix uncomfortable, so his hands end up resting on the crumpled bedsheets by his knees. 

Felix shifts, angling away from Seungmin, and Seungmin’s heart does a little cartwheel in his chest. It’s not the kind of cartwheel he’s used to getting when he looks at Felix; this is more dread than anticipation. 

“Felix,” Seungmin says quietly, “I think you’re bleeding.”

Felix turns, the movement sharp, and he winces. “…Is it my back?”

Seungmin nods, eyes still trained on the dull red staining the thin fabric of Felix’s shirt. The night flashes before his eyes again, and there Felix is, slamming into a breaking rail before falling over the edge. “Does it hurt?”

“Not any more than it already did.” Felix moves to pull the shirt off and a distressed whine slips from Seungmin before he can bite it back. Felix glances up at him, hands fisting in the bottom hem as he pulls. “It didn’t hurt that much before, don’t worry.” The last bit is muffled by the shirt blocking his face as he tugs it off. 

Seungmin supposes he should be glad Felix misread his distress, but when he gets a good look at Felix’s back, he realizes he’d rather be worried about Felix being shirtless in his bedroom (on his _ bed _) than about the large purple bruise blooming across his skin. 

The bruise is shot through with streaks of green like shooting stars, and there are a few thin, red cuts woven throughout, but none of them seem to be actively bleeding. “I guess the blood is old,” Seungmin breathes in relief. 

Felix lets out a small puff of air and his shoulders sag. “Does it… look okay?” He sounds hesitant, though Seungmin’s not entirely sure why.

“It looks…” Seungmin tilts his head and the colored blotches all blend together like a paint mixing on a canvas. He lifts a hand to brush away the bits of dried blood that cling stubbornly to Felix’s skin. “It looks like the northern lights,” he says without thinking. Instantly heat pools in his cheeks and he shakes his head. “It looks like it hurts, though,” he stutters out to cover his blunder. He shouldn’t find this beautiful, not when it came from such a horrible thing, not when it’s nothing but the color of pain on Felix’s skin. But it’s hard for Seungmin to see any part of Felix as anything less than beautiful - even this.

Felix sighs and his skin dances over shifting muscles. Seungmin is captivated, and forces himself to glance away. “It’s not bad, really. The time I fell off the bookshelf when we were playing apocalypse in the library was worse, and I lived after that. Even if the librarian didn’t want me to.” This gets a small laugh out of Seungmin. “Besides,” Felix gestures vaguely at his chest, “I think this one hurts more anyway and even _ it’s _not as bad as that was.”

Seungmin’s eyes go wide and he twists to look from Felix’s back to his chest, but Felix is still facing ahead, angled just far enough to the side that Seungmin can’t see the bruise. He hesitates a moment, then lays a gentle hand on Felix’s shoulder. “Can I?”

Felix turns his head and looks at Seungmin, eyes clouded by something he can’t identify. After a moment, the look softens to trust, and Felix nods. He pulls a leg up and folds it over Seungmin’s thighs, adjusting himself so that they’re facing each other. 

Seungmin sucks in a breath. Smack dab in the middle of Felix’s chest, right at the junction of his ribs, is a dark purple-blue bruise. A footprint painted on his skin. The memory flashes before Seungmin’s eyes again and he sees the criminal’s boot slam into Felix, knocking him back into the rail and over the edge.

“Felix…” Seungmin breathes, sounding wounded even to himself. The hand he doesn’t have on Felix’s shoulder moves on its own to hover centimeters from midnight skin. 

“Still not as bad as the library though,” Felix says, trying for a joke but sounding breathless instead. “That one-” he cuts off abruptly as Seungmin’s fingers land lightly on his skin.

Seungmin is careful. He keeps his touch gentle, just a feather brush of skin against skin as he traces the outline of the bruise. Felix’s breath hitches, and Seungmin stills, worried he’s hurt Felix even with the most delicate touch.

But it’s not pain in Felix’s eyes when Seungmin looks up to meet his gaze. Seungmin’s heart does another cartwheel in his chest, and this time it’s from disbelief. He licks his lips nervously and watches (fucking _ watches _) Felix track the movement before turning his eyes back to Seungmin and looking up at him through dark lashes. Seungmin’s heart does another frantic wheelie and flatlines right then and there. 

Something burns in Seungmin’s chest like phoenix flames born from his dying heart, and it grows in strength as Felix grows slowly closer, until Seungmin can’t see anything but him. Seungmin blinks, swallows hard, licks his lips again. A faint whine slips from Felix and the last string of Seungmin’s sanity snaps. 

Seungmin tips his head as he leans forward, uses the hand he has on Felix’s shoulder to ground himself so he doesn’t spin off into space as Felix closes the last bit of distance between them. 

Felix’s lips are nice. _ So nice _, Seungmin thinks before critical thought up and runs right out of his brain. All the air rushes from Seungmin’s lungs, and his grip on Felix’s shoulder tightens just so as it sinks in that he’s kissing Felix. Felix is kissing him. 

It’s gentle, clumsy, Felix’s lips petal soft and cool as they move again Seungmin’s, warm and raw from his nervous biting. Seungmin hardly has a clue what he’s doing, just that he’s wanted to do this for _ ages _ and now it’s actually _ real _. It’s okay too, because Felix rests a hand on Seungmin’s arm to hold him closer and Seungmin thinks maybe Felix has wanted this for a while too. He smiles lightly into the kiss, and swears he feels Felix smile a little too.

Seungmin isn’t sure when his eyes closed, but he finds them opening again slowly as Felix tips back to breathe. Seungmin follows his lead, dragging in a lungful of air before licking his lips again because despite everything (_ because _ of everything), he’s still nervous. He tastes salt on his tongue and remembers that Felix had been crying earlier, hadn’t he. _ Maybe this wasn’t the right time _, he starts to worry, but when he focuses on Felix again, his worries vanish. 

Felix’s eyes are soft and shining, and this time it’s not from tears, but from the same unbridled warmth Seungmin feels unfurling in his own chest, turning his own eyes golden and glassy. They sit there taking it all in, staring at each other with matching looks of both awe and bewilderment until Felix lifts his free hand to place it delicately on Seungmin’s cheek and kisses him again. 

Somehow Seungmin’s hand moves up from Felix’s chest to cup his chin without Seungmin realizing until Felix’s lips part at the touch. For a moment, Seungmin freezes; this is how it had been the night before, when Felix had been unconscious and soaked and sprawled on the ground, and Seungmin hadn’t been sure if he’d even wake up. Seungmin’s eyes burn behind his lids and his heart squeezes painfully in his chest. 

Felix feels him stiffen and pulls back so their lips are just brushing. His thumb moves gently against Seungmin’s cheek and his breath is warm on Seungmin’s mouth. Seungmin lets out a shaky breath and feels himself calm at the touch. Felix isn’t cold anymore, isn’t dripping river water or choking on it. He’s up and moving and breathing, and he’s _ okay _. Their noses brush, and Seungmin encourages Felix’s lips back to his with a light press of fingers to his jaw. 

So Seungmin kisses Felix again and they stay there, figuring out how their mouths fit and move best together, until their lips are sore and swollen and as rich a red as their blushing cheeks. Then Seungmin pulls back for air, and Felix wraps his arms around Seungmin and nuzzles his warm, star-scattered cheek against Seungmin’s.

“If I’d known getting kicked off a bridge would get me kisses like that I would’ve done it way sooner,” he says a bit breathlessly.

Seungmin leans his head against Felix’s and squeezes his middle. “Please don’t joke about that,” he whispers, “I’ve never been so terrified.”

Felix is silent for a moment, but he holds Seungmin tighter. “I know,” he says quietly. “Neither have I.” He shifts back so he can look Seungmin in the eye again. “But I’m okay. You got me. I’m okay.”

“Right.” Seungmin nods and strokes a hand along Felix’s shoulder to reassure himself. “You’re okay.”

“Mhm.” Felix smiles and Seungmin likes this so much more than when Felix cries. “And I’ve got my kickass mom cops so I should be set.”

“And me,” Seungmin blurts, “you’ve got me.”

Felix’s smile splits his face and lights him up like the sun. “And you,” he says, pressing a chaste kiss to Seungmin’s red cheek. 

Seungmin nods again and feels like the world has shifted back into place, like he’s finally stopped spinning and has landed right where he wants to be; right beside Felix. 

Felix ends up pulling on a fresh shirt and maneuvering them to the head of his bed where they lay against his pillows, wrapped in each other’s arms as Seungmin details (quietly) the truth about him being Spiderman. 

(It’s a lot of stinky feet and doing the laundry in the middle of the night, and a _ lot _of help from Wonpil, who’d found out on night three because Seungmin had accidentally walked into the bathroom with his suit on while Wonpil was peeing in the dark.) 

Eventually Felix dozes off on Seungmin’s shoulder, Seungmin slipping into a light sleep soon after, and when they wake the sun is golden through Felix’s window. The sky says it’s not quite sunset, but no longer midday. 

Seungmin kisses Felix once more - short and sweet because his mouth tastes off after napping - and thinks that _ yes, they’re okay, they’ll be okay. Everything will be okay. _

And it is. 

( Later, Felix laughs that his moms are going to kill him for dating Spiderman right under their noses. Seungmin laughs too. Neither of them quite care. )

**Author's Note:**

> wussup folks i wrote this in 16 days <strike>straight</strike> gay plus a few days of soul-crushing planning but this babey is DONE and i hope u enjoyed bc as much as i suffered writing this i also had a lot of fun so yeah! let me know what u thought! lov u <33
> 
> (thank u kj for listening to me say stupid shit about this for daysssss and helping me out with everything ur the realest this would just Not have happened without u)
> 
> [AWESOME ART](https://twitter.com/spr0utr/status/1289502777912119297?s=20)


End file.
